The realm of tormenting dreams

© Sergey Vassiliev, 2017

ISBN 978-5-4485-9665-0

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

I started to write this book a very long time ago, when the disease was actively oppressing me. I wanted very much to be heard, even more to be understood. Horrible things happen in the realm of tormenting dreams, as I called the place where I come from, the place where suffering and pain, injustice and despair rule, the place of unrealized hopes, evil and unceasing sorrow. The torments of life in this country can be felt by many, if not everyone. To fall into the trap of spiritual dreams and to become lonely – what could be more evil? The brand of madness frightened the brightest minds more than anything else. “No, it’s easier with a stick and a bag, no, it’s easier to work and starve,” as Pushkin thought. And undoubtedly, I would have to stay within the borders of this gloomy country, if there was no such wonderful person who showed me the way of hard labor and diligence, by which one can become strong and overcome the horrors of madness.

Vassiliev Sergey

Introduction

What happens to a person exposed to the destructive effects of a mental disease? When, at what critical moment, do really start the terrible attacks which greatly alter the behavior that had before generally matched the social requirements? These questions are not critical and are asked without the basic understanding of the disease, but I’m going to answer them and to start my story from the point where I had first noticed the symptoms that became visible to others, and got already an irreversible process overwhelming the whole spiritual life, because this very topic, unfortunately, causes a keen interest in society in such cases. But this book is not written for these audience; the book’s main goal is to provide support to those who are ruled by terrible mental diseases, I want to encourage such people who are severely tormented by the terrible exposure of serious illnesses, showing them my way by which I coped with psychosis, setting free from the disease’s oppression and gaining the true mental health. What are the results of strong psycho disruptions and what do an ill human have to endure under the onslaught of insanity and shocking mental excitements? The description of this problem will give a better understanding of the very unenviable situation of a mentally sick person to those who face this issue. Most importantly, you will learn here who and how helped me fight the disease. All these topics are described detailed enough; the reader can deeply feel the emotions with which I had been filled for a huge part of my life, and can trace clearly enough almost every step in the formation of my personality: from its weak and crushed by psychosis state to a fairly stable and completely free condition. I frankly open to you all the above, but not limited to, describing the flows of emotions leading to a psychosis, making me submerge into maniacal and depressive fantasies, when I almost lost the important connection with the world which laws govern the life of capable people. I will try to explain in detail the story of my inner feelings, those jitters and manifestations of psychosis hidden from anyone else.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear, he who has eyes, let him see

Basically, a human already has a readiness for strange deeds; it is to say that a mental disease does not fall on him from nowhere; the ground for deviated behavior is prepared in advance, usually in very childhood. I was already sick being a child, but this news became known to me unfortunately late, when I was undergoing a course of psychotherapy at a fairly adult age and the mental disease manifested in actions already visible to and attracting others’ attention, which then seemed to come from nowhere, breaking out like an ominous protest to something inside me that was waiting for such a reaction which destroyed with a terrible noise all my former life and the previously defined productive missions and goals.

I just finished the first university year and, unfortunately, could no longer continue my studies: its cost abruptly rose, and many students, and me too, were transferred to other educational institutions. This, of course, was a shock, and I remember its wave effect in my soul: suddenly at the moment of farewell, I turned from my closed, quiet, broken somewhere inside, almost constantly dull state, hidden from my friends as much as possible, into a person I had dreamed to be being a student – vigil, easily communicating, self-confident and interesting. These are persons who usually is loved and respected by young people, the persons who are vigil and active. But I lost the world for which all this enthusiasm was expected, and in general, instead of even greater sadness and sorrow at the time of leaving, I rejoiced, on the contrary, showing no sign of my failure to others, as if a happy event occurred to me, thus shining with joy. May be this is the right way?, you may ask. But here’s the point: this euphoria was an inflated, sick mental state, a part of the incoming sorrow of an incredible scale. At that time I have spent the entire limit of tolerance to horrible feelings and was already being destroyed from within, losing control, falling into the abyss of a sorrow that is the worst for a human – the horror of madness. And this leap of mood was the first effective phenomenon, a change in the attitude towards the reality, a harbinger of the disease inception. Filled with this wave of strange idleness, I rushed into another university, having passed the entrance exams, but found myself to have weak erudition, since maniacal exultations strongly weaken attention, the necessary memory properties and assiduity. But somehow, by the power of my new charm, which, as I realized, make proud all the patients with such a disorder, I managed to enter the next year in another university, while my mood was beginning to take on already dashing forms of a real disease.

On vacation I began to calm down a little, but it was a respite before meeting the unthinkable. It happened to me to get acquainted with a strange woman. She came to my village to live her unusual life, anyone understood her intentions, the mood of which she brought from India, having absorbed there a lot of unknown and mysterious, which she decided to share here with everyone who wanted to, especially with us, teenagers. Experienced in rural life, we rushed to help her in household activities, getting from her in return knowledge about what was happening in mystical India. And, I must say, I, as the leader of her helpers, always wanted to get a very good support from this communication and, perhaps, even the healing of my skin disease, which was incurable by official medics; my soul was especially tormented by the fact that the disease was noticeable to girls who cruelly mocked at me. So I waited for the help of this mysterious wisewoman in this very important issue. After all, she had a healing remedy called “prasāda”, a divine powder that was materialized from nothing by the real living Indian god Sai Baba, who was now on the other side of the world and worked miracles, healing people, and also materializing valuable objects, and, in general, performing all kinds of miracles. Of course, I was interested in this, even too much. She did not give me the powder, only teased, but I got the picture of God. And imagine my surprise, when I started meditating, looking at this photo with a prayer for healing, a miracle occurred, suddenly the spots of my illness ran down Sai Baba’s face, and my complex disappeared at once, I felt calm, and I stopped worrying, having developed the indifference to this disease, for the God was smiling, looking at me, covered with vitiligo stains, showing the insignificance of my grief, which I had suffered for almost all my life, trying all possible ways of treatment, and felt myself completely destroyed by this problem. Certainly, I was delighted with such a surprise, it was like a load off my mind, now I had no complex, at least not so much, and it was very important for me.

And then, being sure that the God is real, because he could save me from suffering, which had been so bad, I decided to ask him questions by way of telepathy.

“Why do wars occur in the world? When God appeared on Earth, how could he allow such injustice?” – and so I fell asleep with these thoughts, but in sleep began to see fast my own memories, which suddenly rushed from the depths of my memory along with a flow of strengths unknown to me before, and jitters started to twist inside my mind. “It’s me,” I told himself then, as soon as I recognized myself in the past, “both this and that.”

So everything whirled in my head, and suddenly I got a feeling of great power, I can say, when I quickly recognized myself in the pictures of the past that were falling on me, as if decoding my life in search of something. I was filled with horror, which was hidden behind all these jitters, and this nightmare suddenly burst out like something black as the image of a healthy evil furry dog, in front of my eyes, and I realized that this monster has nothing to do with me, and felt at once a powerful emotional blow, and the breakdown of these incredible forces, which had already driven me mad enough. What was going on in my head and what did really scared me so much? This feature of lightning-fast self-evaluation suddenly became for me a sign of something happening to me, that was, of course, unknown and was definitely based on the mystical environment in which I had been lived lately. I felt such powerful raptures, explosions, bursts of attention across all the coordinates of my soul. Such as like you are flying, not in a dream, but in reality already, and you can smash, disappear, and your life, as they say, would flash in your eyes with the sense of proximity of death, this is exactly the very jitter resembling such kind of horror.

This night, I lost under the weight of emotions my mind, or rather, an important part thereof; I suddenly joined some exciting and dangerous game and became extremely passionate about it. The unusual sensation of some unknown power and horrible freedom which a human feels, falling in a flight which is fatal and final for him, soon altered everything, that was sober, normal and necessary in me, to adhere to the life path that I had built up to this time, and absolutely different things became important. After all, will you agree, if there is God on Earth, and even lives here, then what the hell is the rest going on? All these universities, work, rules and criteria, which had made sense before, are simply ridiculous trifles in comparison with this fact. And the new views on reality, of course, together with the accompanying unusual sensations and at the same time with a mysterious intriguing freedom. Here, in this world, new ideas for self-determination easily emerge, and very soon I decided that it was caused by my inner strength, – an instant, fast thought, as it seemed absolutely clear, and most importantly, that which was the bliss unknown before that had infused me… in general, all this, reassured of the existence of my own divine nature.

Suddenly realizing this involvement in the divine, I felt incredible ease in my whole being and realized that I am also a god. But what kind of God, and what I should do now, since everything for me turned out to be so unexpected and solemn, what should God do? The furious night had not yet passed, when the question of divine destiny had already begun to take possession of me, completely overturning reality with its previous missions and goals. I heard that this woman from India said that Krishna was still showing himself to her, and after she frightened me with a paralysis, if I suddenly decide to avoid meeting her. So I was Krishna appearing to her in my astral form, I thought, to make her pray for me, begging for condescension for the disgusting muck, and she even would not know the initial motive of her prayers, like I would not remember the walks of my divine soul during sleep.

“Exactly, it is Krishna,” I concluded, choosing my status, and the image of a man sitting in the lotus position, which was already hallucinatory inside me and outside at the same time, reminded me of the mission to be performed. I can not remember what thoughts and knowledge brought me to the Bhagavad Gita, but when I looked at the funny pictures therein, I was finally convinced that I was the last reincarnation of this god, by the way, leaping ahead, I would say that I liked better the other god with whom I finally identified myself: it was the parent of all the gods of Brahma, he became the center of my idea of greatness.

Later I remembered that I was losing candies in my childhood, and for sure Sai Baba materialized them in his homeland, as if borrowing items from me a long time ago, so it turned out that he owes me. And I less considered him a god in the shadow of my power, which grew inside me and tended to be known, and then I began to recognize the songs of the Indian god, and more precisely, his voice on a cassette tape from India due to the tones remarkably similar to mine.

“And also borrows the voice,” I thought. Then, Christ was my interlocutor, and I must say, very charming and interesting, I felt his energy, and the rejoicing overflowed my soul, which was the inception and the basis of the energies of all the gods. Of course, this half-crazy, wicked woman looked at me with some suspicion when I introduced her into my emotions. I also revealed to my friends what was happening to me, and since I did not cheat, I spoke the very truth, they completely believed me. I opened my inner world to my parents, who were greatly surprised by the vigor and the passion that were raging inside me. By the way, realizing that I had gone mad, I attacked the Indian woman with the most real curses, figuring out that she was guilty here.

And for me, everything continued to develop further, increased in my audacious fantasies, the ecstasies were replaced one by another, the strength of my speeches and my inadequate behavior was striking. Soon I believed that everyone knows that I am a god, and one of my tasks of responsibility towards everyone was the resurrection of the dead, or rather the awakening of everything that had once died to merge them into a united great entity. Only in order to accomplish this difficult task, I had to accumulate strengths, namely, to get the dream come true as well as the desires of everybody who yearned for their beloved that had passed away. Even I thought and felt about the impatience of others, who almost spoke directly, almost demanded the most prompt performance of my obligations. And I knew deep in my heart that everyone would get into my paradise anyway, and those who know me personally are just infinitely happy, and I wanted to meet each and every man. To transfer everybody one by one to another divine world, leaving the planet empty with its streets and houses, in which I will feel like the owner, left already alone in the whole world… And such happiness of full, unlimited freedom and ownership in the world will be granted to every one. And everything will soon be possible, even while it looked fantastic enough, but there will be no death, diseases and all sorts of suffering, it is only necessary to wait a little for this eternal happiness.

Such views accompanied me, already having made me possessed by that freedom, now, as I thought, in everything, and by an boundless joy for the future peace. That’s how I immersed myself in the ideas of deep insanity that guided my whole being, finally making life terrible, very dangerous and absolutely unnecessary to anyone. I entered the university, being already in many aspects broken by the disease, I remember myself telling a classmate me that I will soon be known to the whole world and have miraculous, yet not completely revealed, superpowers, but, curiously enough, perhaps even due to his high moral qualities, the young man did not betray me then before the other classmates. And even, perhaps, my secret remained with him. However, I worked well enough in classes, and the maniacal activity favored my performance, as I thought, and, even I can say for sure, I gathered around myself a circle of fan girls of my mind and bewitching sociability. But as i was generally weak, on closer examination, he did not tolerate the competition of classmates and was very angry at their attacks, so severe that I could no longer remain in competition, the feelings strangled me, and I was ready to fight, but abandoned the studies and I never saw my class, with whom I had spent however very little time, because it was the second year in my specialty, but, unfortunately, already, as you know, in another college.

Leaping back, I can say that I survived the first year at the college, doing generally not bad there, but unfortunately, in a suppressed state of depression, which, perhaps, was preparing this fantastic rise of mood, exposing its facade. But it still did not deprive me of the opportunity to fall in love with the famous Public Library, where I really enjoyed spending my time, I was delighted with the spirit of this institution, which once had been visited by the top brains. I could sit there for hours and even thought out reasons to stay when my program was exhausted, I helped pass exams to fellow students, but not exactly to help them, but to sit and write here, in the best place on earth. Now let’s return to the situation which rooted away my ability to be a student, and as a result, in general, one of those who are mentally healthy. I turned into something completely unusual, along with other people, into the creatures of this fairy life, and now my intrinsic standard was altered; I was sure of what was happening to me, not only from inside, but also outside. Everything told me about the new order. Here everything was different for me in my idea of greatness, in this complex of Christ. I generally ignored and rejected the postulates of the established ordinary way of life, which, in fact, Christ did in his time, surprising others with the new life laws, claiming to be the king of the new world. But I must say that it was hardly possible to call my life normal, because before, of course, the excitations had not been so striking, but they made me too cheerful and lively teenager, and as time passed I seemed to be exhausted and weak, losing the emotions of that, as they seemed to me, happy life, getting thus in the captivity of depressive feelings and self-reproaches. And this time, I became so cheerful that I was completely in the power of this over cheerful mood, because I was happy with that relief that made me suddenly free and confident, I went crazy, but also took a step towards the development and understanding of myself, the step, which, unfortunately, was a fatal thrust to an excessive jubilation entailing also madness, whose images began to rule everything in me. But in fact, I did not really supposed that it was the feelings in my family, heavy and ferocious, that bothered me, originated the escape into psychosis. What happened at home, the love that came from my parents, completely stopped with the birth of my brother, and it became hard for me, and especially painful. I was not able to stand this alienation, and simply stated that I was a God. And I began to play this role in life, taking all the adversities that could only be resulted by such a rude deviation from the postulates of normal life. After all, I fully believed in this illusion, and like the knight-errant Don Quixote, who passionately believed in his mission as a knight, I, in my turn, was ready to suffer anything in life, remaining faithful to the fate of the god I felt to be, even if this threatened me depriving the prizes of life, understanding of others and in general facing all sorts of misfortunes that would soon just fall upon me for such assurance. But what to do, it was very difficult to dissuade me in this idea, when the psychosis with its turbulent mood and terrible fantasies inside me, did not give me the slightest chance to keep within the world of the old settings and so viciously set me on fire by its intoxication that the road was open only forward. I needed much a very powerful sobering up, a brake on these judgments, directly proportional to their assault force. This counteraction was prepared by my mentality, but the explosions of maniacal ideas continued for a very long time and were incredibly stubborn.

At first I was for many people, perhaps, just a very bright and active person, which confused people in a way that I liked and ensured the triumph of the “mania”, thus suggesting me first of all the rightness of the path which I had taken. My mother decided that I would be a great man, since I am so self-confident. My father said that I was behaving and thinking like a forty-year-old man. Well, of course, the praise of parents is the most important for a child, and I was completely convinced of my normality, I did not seem strange and illogical to myself, but, on the contrary, much smarter than those who surrounded me, and, of course, in such situation I was expecting much more success in everything. My grandmother was overjoyed and surprised at my active mood during our communication, and even totally justified the idea of God by comparing me to Stalin, who spoke, as she knew, that he was also a god or, at least, no worse than a god… On the whole, my behavior was met within my family as a necessary, an accomplished stage of my development towards a strong person. But my parents did not rejoice for long, for I already said that I left the college and started to propagate, i.e. to give my love to those who, in my opinion, needed it so much, and these were all my numerous friends from the village, where I usually spent weekends and vacations. Why should I go to the university when I’m smarter than anyone else? What will they give me there? And in general – soon I will be able to materialize money, and so on… Let learn those who need this education, I have more important things to do: to perform miracles and to lead people is now important, and besides, I will acquire all the knowledge of the world from myself, my hidden potentials, and it was just a question of time to wait. So I quited my favorite college and decided to make quick money on politics.

The pre-election campaign began, my mom saying: “These are the richest people in the city, we only have to take money from them, but how?” I decided to offer them some agitators from among the village youth and so did: I came to them in the office and began to speak, I stunned them, I aroused their interest, they promised to come. I gathered the youth, I explained everything, but all drunken teenagers are unorganized and fearful. I had told my adult friends to come up. A party gathered in which everybody was ruined by alcohol and drugs, also the riches arrived, even they were influenced by the power of maniacal conviction. I almost told them that I was God when convincing. We looked at all that village rabble, said something about football, turned around – and left. Though I disappointed them, but, I must say, surprised the boys from my native village, this was enough for my vanity. The divine is for the God.

These teenagers, to whom I sincerely became attached, began to notice in me something odd because sometimes I gave out my thoughts aloud. “Vasya’s gone crazy”, one of my friends told me, totally sure, in his turn, of my adequacy. I was then busy with the opening the mind’s eye and a similar remark, as I still recall it in my memory, but at that time decided to dissuade others from such a mostly evil assessment of my temperament. But more and more I heard remarks about my insanity, and the girl I was in love with at that time told me, unable to withstand the passions, that everybody mocked at me. They made such assessment not at once; I can say for sure that many people, especially close friends, were for some time undoubtedly convinced that I am a real god, including that girl whose grandmother told my granny that her granddaughter proudly asserted that Serge is a god, and probably she was very pleased that love affairs took place with such an important person. I must say, the fact that I considered myself a god, did not at all controverted the necessary idea of my normality for people who loved me. So unusual were my relations with a huge number of my friends; for almost every work assignment connected with a fairly large farm, I brought with me a whole crowd of teenagers, motivating them with a kind of special power of my inner magnetism, and the kids did the hard work for free to help his so dearly beloved friend. There were cases when over twenty people appeared in the garden fields, and everyone was stimulated by the altruism of the other and, of course, by my special attention, which helped them to feel, I think, happier, and the work seemed to them a fun game. These “walks to Vasya’s garden”, repeated for many years and became a common thing. The nature of this phenomenon was in many respects a mystery to me, and the arisen idea of deification could become an “idée fixe” in such conditions, now the great organizer (in the opinion of many people) Vasya could have really be once that Krishna-boy, who cheerfully had led forward the children of his village in the pictures of Bhagavad Gita. And even after growing up to twenty years old, many of them, even the most stable and intelligent of my comrades, believed that they were friends of a real god. Some day I remembered, being already in deep depression, this suggestion to my friend’s mind, when Vovka expressed quite repulsive sarcasm in my direction, and he began to justify himself, saying: “We believed you,” thus dexterously hiding from the truth, which was the fact that, as I thought, his own maniacal attitudes were in full harmony with mine, and their union made my idea common, as also for Dimon, but these two comrades were smarter and more sober than many of the local guys and yet they got dexterously deceived.

These kinds of ideas were already believed from those books of the magician Castaneda, being in love with whom, we dreamed to go in our entire company to Mexico and find there the teacher of magic called Don Juan. This idea is evidently not much crazier than the one I was infected with, but we were all very much attached to each other, sharing the most secret thoughts and hidden dreams, undoubtedly merging in our search and reasoning into a unity, where the idea of one person could immediately become the idea of another without the intervention of any criticism, or for the sake of that other person, especially due to my deification, which assumed an important role for my great destiny and my friends. And they all believed almost out of habit, because I often took a leading position in relations with friends, who gathered in crowds in the garden to help in hard work, and heard from them no complaints, forcing them to believe that it was the best way to spend time. And if your belief is shared, it has a much greater chance of continuing to exist, and I must say that the guy who woke up the first suspicions of my madness was not from our company. And when a man is already called mad by the community, this makes him a stranger to everyone, because if you do not show your difference in comparison with the sick person, joining the almost direct condemnation, then you are treated like him, and many of them did so, at once forgetting their recent respect as a terrible mistake in their life. Like Pushkin’s: “But truth is: be my mind not clear, a plague will merit as much fear.”

Most of all I was surprised that they suddenly began to reproach me, for example, “leave me alone,” you know, treating me like a dog. After all, this caused a sharp, profound resentment, and besides, to me personally, it was completely unclear why suddenly such insolent anger and rudeness occurred, and most of all, it is not clear how a God can be treated by everyone in such an obviously offensive tone. I could not understand why they mocked at me, considering me crazy, while I’m really so smart and cool. The girl whom fell in love with in, made me even suffer when, I repeat, she said that everybody mocked at me, I just did not believe it and decided to leave the village company with a heavy sense of insult, having already decided to visit a psychiatrist on the advise of my parents (this advice being also silly), because it was difficult already to show to those spoiled evil people the correctness of my idea. And I got into the hospital. I think it was quite simple to persuade me to go there; for me, with grief in my soul, was indifferent where to hide. Although with resentment, but still with a maniacal rise, whose whirlwind was not going to subside, I left the free community. And my views, together with the love of the ideas of my new world, together with the extremely fantastic inner movements inside me, and the terrible passion of crazy despair… Already being settled in the psychiatric clinic, in this swirl of countless anxieties of those who are no longer needed by anyone, those terrible and crazy people, in their irritable and horrible company, of which I became the participant for an indefinite time. Not understanding all the horror of what was happening to me, I was seeking for my place here, but I did not tell anyone about the divine ideas, which here were completely inappropriate among all the anguish that reigned in the feelings of the people around me. I was going to somehow escape; I still did not believe that my freedom was now cut off, that I was away from my home for a long time, and the iron grills threatened the fire of my life, reminding me of this terrible limitation of will.